


Multiplied in Glass

by Lomedet



Category: DCU
Genre: M/M, h/c, post-Outsiders 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 19:49:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomedet/pseuds/Lomedet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The smug bastard pulled a gun on me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Multiplied in Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note the first: a thousand and one thank yous to the incomparable Sage, without whom this would have been half as long and not nearly half as good. I lay virtual roses, chocolate, and independent bookstore gift certificates at her feet. any remaining mistakes are, of course, completely my own.
> 
> Author's note the second: Continuity? We don't need no stinking continuity! However, if you'd like some anyway, this takes place the night after Outsiders 11 (the Haunting of Arsenal). For the sake of sanity, and until we hear differently from D.C., assume it happens *before* Blockbuster and War Games.

> "But I see your face multiplied in glass,  
> And you see mine, through those infinities."  
> -Pamela Dean

 

The smug bastard pulled a gun on me. Years, years of sticking to superhero rules about guns and violence (Breaking people's arms? Just part of the job. Shooting their kneecaps out with a bullet? decidedly not.) and the fucking former Boy Wonder pulls a gun. All right, it was (sort of) for my own good, but right now all I can think about is how pissed I was and how fucking _hot_ it was.

In the moment (God, was it just today?), I was both pissed and grateful -pissed that he knew me that well and used that knowledge to his advantage, and grateful for the demonstration of how badly he wanted me on the team watching his back. For all that we don't talk much about our relationships with our respective mentors or, for that matter, with each other, I'm honored that I have such a high place of the list of People Dick Trusts.

This afternoon we trained, and he pushed me and pushed me, making it plain that I was as strong as ever, and that if I wanted to leave, it was going to have to be because I chose to. After it was all over, he took me out for a late afternoon beer, and it was almost like it was before -before Donna died, and I got hurt, and Dick got bitter.

But tonight, alone in my bed, if not my apartment, I'm losing track of what my relationship with Dick is supposed to be. I can recite the words: a pair of almost brothers first thrown together by circumstance; army buddies who never got to leave the war; two orphans with major daddy issues, seeing in each other funhouse mirror reflections -distorted, but recognizable. But the words lose meaning as I remember the glint of bright light off of the dark metal of the gun, and the drop of sweat on Dick's upper lip as he leaned over me. I call up a memory of training, his arms around me in a wrestling hold, and in my head it shifts, becomes a lover's embrace.

I close my eyes, letting my imagination turn the physical closeness of training into something more sexual. My hand steals under the boxers I sleep in and I lose myself in Dick and the pun still makes me smile even as my breath catches from the picture of Dick, Robin, Dick holding himself above me, and then lowering himself so slowly for a kiss. When our mouths meet, I imagine he will taste like beer and circus peanuts, and I choke back a sob as the Dick in my head reaches up to gently hold the back of my skull.

I'm on the edge of coming, my head completely in my fantasy version of this afternoon, when I hear the soft snick of my window latch undoing itself. Since my apartment has better security than anywhere except the Batcave (not that I've been there lately), I know that whoever is there made it through all of the booby traps, and is thus more likely to be friend than foe. I turn to face the window, and I see an all-too-familiar black and blue shadow perched on the sill.

"Nightwing."

"Arsenal."

"Well, now that we've established who we are, would you care to tell me what the fuck you're doing here?"

"I was worried about you. After today, and before..."

My cock, which had softened in the almost-panic of 'someone's at my window,' begins to perk up again at Dick's obvious concern. I try to cover.

"Nah, man. I'm fine. Just glad you want me back on the team and all."

That stare. I know that Dick's not, actually, Batman. But in the dark, with the blue and the black and that piercing, I've-known-you-longer-than-you've-known-yourself directness, I could almost be confused. He just looks at me for awhile, not moving a muscle.

"Roy, I..." His voice breaks off, and the Bat-mask of an expression slides off of his face, leaving a look that's more Dick than anything I've seen from him in a while. He looks young, and scared. "I'm glad you're okay," he says, although I'm fairly sure that's not the ending that sentence was supposed to have.

"Dick, I'm fine. A little sore maybe, but that's more from our workout today than anything else."

He retracts the lenses on his mask, and looks searchingly at my face as if that will tell him better than my words how I really feel. We hold each other's gaze for a moment, and then his eyes drop lower. I remember that I'm not wearing a shirt at the same time as Dick flinches from my newest scars, wearing an expression that I remember seeing on him the first time he saw me leave a fight bleeding. It's like seeing me hurt hurts him more than being hurt himself. I'm trying to think of something to say that will make this better, when he abruptly comes down from the window, and starts towards me.

"Do they still hurt?"

That wasn't the question I was expecting him to ask.

"Only when I breathe," I try, hoping to get a laugh out of him with an old, shared, joke.

He doesn't even smile, and I can see him looking at me even more closely, measuring my breathing and trying to figure out if I actually meant it.

"Dick. Get a grip, man. They've healed fine."

He frowns at me, and I hastily flesh out my answer, hoping something resembling the truth will be enough for him.

"Okay, so I ache a little when it rains. And the muscles will never be exactly what they were, but if I train enough..."

He interrupts me, "Can I touch them?"

Now it's my turn to frown at him. I can't remember the last time Dick asked permission to touch me. It feels weird, wrong, or at least wrong for us. We've been in and out of each other's comfort zones since before we were old enough to know we had them, with kicks and punches for training, hands to help during fights, and hugs for comfort when the training and fighting were over.

"Roy?"

I realize that as I've been meditating on the manifold physical expressions of our friendship, he's been just standing there, not moving at all as he waits for my answer. I open my mouth to tell him of course he can, he's a doofus even for asking, but instead what comes out is

"Why?"

He looks away from me, biting his lip in the way he does when the last thing he wants is to be honest, but he's going to do it anyway.

"I want, I need, I need to feel you whole."

His stuttering admission (Dick? Stuttering?) floors me, and as he looks back at me I nod, slowly, giving him permission to take what he needs.

He sits on the bed and reaches out to me. I expect, although nothing tonight is going according to expectation, that he'll head straight for my chest, for the part of me that he thinks is broken. Instead, his hand comes up to touch my face, ghosting down my cheek and twisting to cup my chin. He runs his thumb over my lower lip and lets go, trailing his hand down my untouched neck to my damaged chest. He gracefully traces the edges of each scar, as if my chest is a topographical map that he has to be able to find his way around in the dark. He lingers at each pucker of scar tissue, like he really does need to make absolutely sure that the holes in my body really are closed. His hand finds its way up to the back of my neck, and he squeezes me there, his fingers running through the hair at my nape.

I inhale sharply and press back into his grip, and then I feel his other hand on my back, pulling me into the tightest hold he's ever had me in. I can feel him breathing, exhaling over the sensitive skin just below my ear, and as his tongue flickers out to taste me, my cock takes that as its cue to remember exactly what I was doing before I was interrupted by my nighttime visitor.

I let out a shuddering sigh, "Dick..."

He leans back, until I can feel his breath on my face, "You were broken Roy. I need to know that you're whole again. All the way whole."

Something about the way he's phrased that bothers me, and I push him away from me, less than gently. "If you just want to have sex with me so you can check it off of your 'Team Leader's List of Things Roy Has to be Able to Do Before I'll Clear Him For Active Status,' then you can leave right now," I say, indicating the window with my chin.

He looks startled, and then he laughs for the first time all night. I can see him rewinding the last five minutes in his head, and realizing that I do, in fact, have a point.

"No, that's not what I'm doing, although I can see why you'd think so. I've been a bastard the last few months, huh?"

I feel something inside me relax.

"Yes, you have. And if that's not what you're doing, than can I ask what you are doing here, Mr. Grayson?"

He smiles, a little sheepishly. "I worry about you, and I was worried about you, and I do need to know that you're all right. And, training today made me remember us and how good we are, and how good we are for each other, and I..."

I kiss him.

***

He kisses me.

Most of me is quite happily involved in kissing him back, enjoying the duel of our tongues and the feel of his hands, strong and sure, on my waist and back. It would be so easy to just relax into this, to let our bodies take over and do all of our talking for us, to let sex make this better.

I don't, actually, always take the easy way out.

I pull back, leaving my hands exactly where they were, so he knows that this isn't a denial or rejection of him.

"Roy, I want..."

"Shut up, Dick."

He kisses me again, deeper this time, and I let myself get swept up in it, reveling in the rarity of being able to do this with someone who I trust, no holds barred. The niggling voice at the back of my skull tries to tell me that the two of us still have things to talk about, and I remind it that talking isn't what either of us do best.

I let my mouth follow the path my hand traced earlier. Stubble under my lips and tongue makes me smile, as does the sound I manage to pull from Roy by using my teeth, just the littlest bit, on the soft skin of his throat. I linger for a while at the jutting angle of his collarbone, making him squirm.

I close my eyes, picturing Roy's chest. I see a cascade, a timeline of images. Scrawny preteen, fit teenager, incredibly buff man, wasted addict, so much blood... I take a deep breath, smelling soap and spice and Roy, and open my eyes to look down at his scars. Someday they might be beautiful, beautiful battle scars on a beautiful man, but for now I'm just glad that they've stopped bleeding.

I lower my head, placing gentle kisses on each healed wound. When I've acknowledged them all, I open my mouth and let myself taste them. I think I was expecting gunpowder, copper, iron, the metallic aftertaste of bullets and blood. What I get is Roy, no different from his throat or his cheek or his lips. Somehow reassured by this consistency, I bathe each scar with my tongue. Roy gasps as I touch their edges, tracing the boundary where nerve-dead flesh meets that which is very much still alive.

He gives me free reign for a few minutes, then I feel his hand in my hair, pulling me back up to his mouth. He kisses me once, hard, then pulls back and looks at me. He frowns, but before I can get worried it turns in to an almost-laugh.

"Dick, man, you are wearing way too many clothes."

I'm still wearing my uniform, and my cock has been waiting, with a suprising amount of politeness, for me to get it out from the damn cup already.

I kiss him back, hard and fast, and then stand up so I can peel myself out of my costume. I take a moment to look at Roy, and at his smirk I yank off my jock and drop it on top of the pile. When I rejoin him on the bed, he grabs me and pulls so that we're both horizontal, with me on top.

I look down at him, enjoying our closeness, our sweat-slicked chests sliding one against the other. I kiss him, and feel more than hear the rumbling purr coming from deep within his chest. He starts to say something against my lips, and I let his mouth go so I can hear what he has to say.

"...taste like beer, but not like peanuts."

"Roy? You're not making any sense."

He smiles, lazily, and says, "Earlier, I thought you'd taste like circus peanuts, but you don't."

Oh. I run through various responses to this in my head, willing myself to not actually say, 'you were thinking about what I tasted like?' I finally come out with, "Do you mind? That I don't taste like what you thought?"

This makes him grin, a wider smile than I've seen from him in a long, long, time. "No. This is real."

We could spend all night unpacking that little exchange, but instead I kiss him again, grinding against him with serious intent. I've got one hand in his hair, and the other resting on his hip. I slide that one around, cupping him gently through his boxers before I start to tug on the waistband.

He murmurs approvingly, and moves one of his hands to cup the nape of my neck, and the other from my waist to my ass. I gasp with pleasure as he runs one finger down my crack, and then slips that hand around between us to palm my dripping cock.

"Oh god, that's good," I whimper, and drop my forehead to touch his. He gives a comforting squeeze to the base of my neck, and eases me over so I'm on my side, facing him.

His fingers wrap around my cock, and he starts to jack me. I reach for him, yanking his boxers down so I can return the favor. He kisses me, and reaches down, bringing my hand and his cock into contact with my cock. He wraps his hand around both of us, and I do the same.

I moan into his mouth, thrusting desperately into our hands. He deepens our kiss, clamping his hand on the back of my head like he's afraid I'll go somewhere. I lace my fingers with his around our cocks, so I'm holding his hand and jacking him off at the same time.

We find a rhythm without talking, our hands moving up and down, up and down so that we're both panting and gasping and and thrusting and leaking all over each other's hands. His tongue is in my mouth and mine is in his, and all all I can taste and feel and smell and hear is Roy and we're moving together and faster and harder and he shouts his completion and comes all over me just before I do the same to him.

I just lie there, catching my breath, and I can hear him trying to get his breath back too. Before I can even think of moving, he reaches for me, and arranges us so that my head is on his chest, and I'm wrapped snugly in his arms. I try not to think about the ridges of scar tissue I can feel beneath my cheek, and just breathe.

"So, Boy Wonder, is this why you showed up at my window tonight?"

There's no censure in his voice, or amusement either. It sounds like he's simply, honestly, curious. I take a moment to think about my answer.

"Not...explicitly. I really did just want to know that you were okay."

I feel him tense, just a little. He says, his voice significantly smaller, "Did you...want this? With me?"

I sigh. The entire world knows that I suck at relationships, that I find the people who are worst for me and try to make it work with them. I need Roy in my life, sane and whole, but I honestly don't know if I can have him in my life that way without fucking it up. I snuggle closer to him, and tell his chest, "I don't regret having sex with you."

Now it's his turn to sigh. "Okay then, Robin, what do you regret?"

"Roy...I..."

Suddenly, I can't be with him. I need to get out, to fly around the city. Maybe go back to the Haven so I can think.

"I should go."

He narrows his eyes and pins me with a long, assessing look.

"Okay."

He squeezes me, hard, then lets me up. I grab some tissues off the nightstand and clean myself up, and then put my uniform back on. I'm at the window, ready to leave, when he speaks again.

"Dick. We're still best friends, aren't we?"

That phrase is completely inadequate and we both know it, but it covers most of what we are to each other most of the time. I look at him and nod sharply, once.

"Always."

We hold each other's gaze a moment longer, and I take the look in his eyes with me as I go flying through what's left of the night.

***

Some say we picture lovers face to face  
Entwined, intent each on the other alone,  
While friends are side by side intent, and gaze  
Upon some truth each thought himself to own  
Sole, strange, and lonely: Friendship is that wood  
In which rank all flowers we thought rare,  
In which at first aghast we stared and stood  
To see two phoenix dazzle the dim air.  
But when I think of you in terms of these  
Symbolic fine patterns, full of grace,  
We are not side by side but back to back,  
Intent upon wo mirrors where we gaze:  
But I see your face multiplied in glass,  
And you see mine, through those infinities.  
-Pamela Dean


End file.
